Preview of Joker Game’s Anime Themes

Joker Game, the anime sourced from Kōji Yanagi’s novel, takes place just prior to World War II where Japan’s army creates the “D Agency” to serve as its intelligence unit. Unlike Japan’s militaristic stance during this period, D Agency, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Yūki requires that the unit lives according to its mission statement of: “Don’t kill, don’t get killed, don’t get captured.” The anime is set to air on April 5, 2016.

With an airing date coming in less than a month, Production I.G., the studio in charge of animation production for Joker Game, has been releasing a series of trailers for the anime. In addition to that, they’ve also released the videos for both Joker Game‘s opening and ending themes. The opening theme is a song titled “Reason Triangle” by Quadrangle, a fairly unknown band. The ending theme, “Double”, is performed by Magic of Life, a group that’s also done work on Yowamushi Pedal’s second season. For those interested, the Youtube videos of the opening and ending themes can be found below.

Opening Theme: “Reason Triangle” by Quadrangle

Ending Theme: “Double” by Magic of Life

As you can hear from these previews, the opening theme is pretty snazzy, with a nice rhythm and a good amount of energy even if the melody repeats itself a bit much. “Reason Triangle” is par for what you’d expect from J-rock themes and at least the execution seems to be decent overall. As for “Double”, the introduction is marked by a combination of percussion and electric guitars which segue to decent vocals that feel pretty expressive compared to other songs of its ilk. All together, these songs come across as being competent if not exceptional, but they should serve Joker Game well.

With all that said, I’m less enthralled with knowing that the composer for the series will be none other than Kenji Kawai. The show’s contents already look to be kinda shounen-y and having Kawai on staff means I’ll be skipping this one.